The California avocado industry as a whole is expecting a lighter crop this year following two heavier crop years in 2013 and 2012.

In mid-March, Charlie Eagle, vice president of business development for Southern Specialties, headquartered in Pompano Beach, FL, told The Produce News that the company’s Florida specialty variety pepper programs will run into May.

“Our specialty pepper lineup includes Anaheims, Cherry Hots, Cubanelles, Finger Hots, Hungarian Wax, Jalapenos, Long Hots, Poblanos and Serrano varieties,” said Eagle. “All our specialty peppers are packed in one-half bushels and in five- and ten-pound bushels, and are sold under our popular ‘Southern Selects’ brand name.”

GloriAnn Farms is gearing up for its much-anticipated California sweet corn season. Over the next few days, the company’s sweet corn supply will begin transitioning to California, just as the Mexico growing regions begin to wind down.

In its California cherry program, Morada Produce Co. LP in Stockton, CA, is “fortunate” to have “a good solid grower base in every major growing district” throughout the state, according to Michael Jameson, who handles export sales for the company.

That provides the benefit of assuring a steady supply of fruit throughout the season.

For the early part of the California cherry season, “we have a lot of our own tonnage” from company orchards in the Bakersfield-Arvin-Shafter area, Jameson said. “We also have a number of outside growers in that region,” he said.

The national consumer group Food & Water Watch released extensive comments highlighting the damaging effects of the proposed Albertsons-Safeway supermarket merger on consumers and farmers. The group estimated that increased retail grocery concentration in the 44 markets where the two chains currently compete could increase consumer grocery prices between $900 million and $2 billion every year.

It was too early to know for sure, but as of the beginning of April, Grower Direct Marketing LLC in Stockton, CA, exclusive sales agent for O-G Packing Co., was hoping for “a full, promotable crop” of Bing cherries out of the Linden-Lodi area in the northern San Joaquin Valley of California, according to Jim Hanson, managing partner of Grower Direct.

“From all indications at this point, it looks like a nice full crop,” he said April 1. “I don’t think anybody is frowning on the Bing crop. They are probably pretty encouraged by what they have seen so far. At least we are.”